Evergreen International Conference 2009: Standing Together

A holiday weekend immediately followed “eg09,” as we tagged it, so it will be next week most likely before we see all the slides, pictures, blog posts, and whatnot associated with Evergreen International Conference 2009.

In some ways the Evergreen conference felt like a joyous family gathering, the kind where you connect with relatives you have only heard about through family folklore. For the first time ever, that which is “Evergreen” was in one place at one time, sharing common goals and interests. This will happen again many more times, but it will never happen again for the very first time.

It was a terrific event by all accounts, with a remarkable level of energy and excitement that began building in Wednesday’s “anyfests” for coding, sysadmin training, and documentation planning, then moved smoothly into a terrific opening-night reception.

On Thursday, Lamar Veatch, state librarian for Georgia, set the tone for the conference by beginning his opening remarks with the international recording of Stand By Me. (Sounds as if Evergreen now has a theme song?) Joe Lucia then gave an amazing opening keynote address, “Song of the Open Road.” We then all moved into a day and a half of bogglingly wonderful programs, table talks, Birds of a Feather sessions, keynotes, dine-arounds, pub crawls, and more.

On Friday we closed out our conference with a development update, three lightning talks, the last programs, and Jessamyn West’s closing keynote.Â Then we adjourned.. and it was all over, for the very first time!